


hope dangles on a string (like a slow-spinning redemption)

by oblivioluna



Category: Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys & Sophism (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, The Emotionally Repressed Duo back at it again, and you have to drag him on a road-trip to redeem both of yourselves, because you’re both disasters, oblivioluna is SICK and TIRED of sad endings, tfw your boyfriend who isn’t really your boyfriend goes into self-imposed exile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26216368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oblivioluna/pseuds/oblivioluna
Summary: You can’t tear two things that are meant to be together apart.
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White, William Hawkes/Kym Ladell
Comments: 9
Kudos: 78





	hope dangles on a string (like a slow-spinning redemption)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Dashboard Confessional’s ‘Vindicated.’

_Hope dangles on a string, like slow-spinning redemption_

_Winding in and winding out_

_The shape of it has caught my eye._

____

_ARDHALIS HIGH COURT_

_PARISH OF GREYCHAPEL_

_ADMINISTRATION OF ARDHALIS_

  
  


_ARDHALIS CITY_

_versus_

_LAUREN SINCLAIR_

_No. 1038_

_Section: A_

  
  


**_Probable Cause Hearing_ **

**_Motion to Testify For Innocence Against Convicted Criminality_ **

_Testimony and notes of evidence taken in the above - entitled and numbered cause - before the Hon. Councilman Lavillant, presiding on this day, March 3rd, XX27._

_Appearances:_

**_Representing the People of Ardhalis City:_ **

_Attorney Eliza Smith, Assistant Defense_

**_Representing the defendant, Lauren Sinclair:_ **

_Attorney Marcus Dupain, Public Defender_

**_Reported by:_ **

_Léopold Fitzgerald, Senior Reporter to Le Journal_

**_State Witness:_ **

_Detective March, Direct Examination_

  
  


**_Exhibit Index_ **

_Conviction - Page 6_

_Testimony - Page 8_

_Final Affairs - Page 20_

  
  


||

  
  


**Attorney Dupain:** Your Honor, if the conviction proceedings have gone like so, I believe the defendant should be able to testify as scheduled.

**Hon. Lavillant:** Attorney Dupain, witness objection to the conviction is palpable. [gesturing, witness objection is loud and clear.] If the defendant will rouse enough backlash to her defense, I don’t see the need to have her speak directly.

**Attorney Dupain:** Your Honor, I simply—

**Hon. Lavillant:** You are her representative. That will do.

**Attorney Dupain:** She was a protector of the law, Your Honor, if I may object. She deserves to have a say in why she broke the governance of our state. Our city. _The law is the law,_ and we should seek to understand why she did what she did.

**Hon. Lavillant:** Would you have defended Kieran White in the same way?

**Attorney Dupain:** He is not my client. The court allots for ten minutes of speaking time per testimony. We should allow said time.

**L. Sinclair:** [quietly] It’s alright. I can hear the objection loud and clear.

**Attorney Dupain:** [aside] Don’t agree. You need to tell them what you did upfront.

**Hon. Lavillant:** _Attorney._ If you will stop conversing with the defendant in private, the ten minutes you have been so adamant on requesting is now a motion granted. Defendant Sinclair - you are on the clock.

[shuffling of papers, scraping of a chair as L. Sinclair moves to stand. The representative victims grow louder in their objections.]

**L. Sinclair:** What I did was wrong.

[objections.]

**Hon. Lavillant:** _Order!_ [silence] You are pleading guilty?

**L. Sinclair:** To every charge and accusation. Chastigation of the law, withholding evidence from the police, co-conspirator to Lune, theft, breaking and entering, and…[breaking off] attempted murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter. I did not take Tim Sake’s life - or any of his five associate’s lives - in self-defense. The atrocities I have committed, however, go beyond what I have listed. I have harmed the people of Ardhalis when I meant to do good for them - namely, by working with their feared enemy, but also withholding justice in the name of my own revenge. I was selfish then. I regret it now. I let my own hatred and anger and hypocrisy cloud my judgement when I should have never let it. But towards the end...I tried to do what was right. And I uphold my actions. The Phantom Scythe will terrorize the city no longer. The Leader is dead by my hand. [brief silence] I know my actions have not been condonable. Neither have his. We are not asking for mercy. All we ask for is justice brought to the people we have harmed - and safety.

[The defendant sits down. The crowd murmurs amongst themselves.]

**Hon. Lavillant:** Very well, Defendant Sinclair. I will ask you only this, as precisely five minutes resides on the ten minute clock. What are _you_ asking for?

**L. Sinclair:** [after a beat of five] Peace.

____

They find her in the lobby of the courthouse at noon.

Kym holds up a wicker basket with a periwinkle cloth lovingly tucked into the wooden edges. She smiles sheepishly, and Lauren silently takes note of the way she and Will drift next to each other like puzzle pieces, their hands clasped together. The building is cold - ancient marble pillars, heavy oak doors, lamps that spare no thought for delicacy nor elegance that swing above them - but here, in this hallway where everyone seems to ignore her or disregard her, which is better than just plain hatred, she assumes - Kym and Will, true to their name, bring warmth and light into her life as they always have.

Before Lauren can greet either of them, the basket is thrust into Will’s hands, and Kym has embraced her tightly, nearly squeezing her midriff to the point where her ribs will surely crack. Her head burrows into Lauren’s shoulder, and after a moment of hesitation, Lauren hugs her back, inhaling her familiar scent of velvet rose and now citrus soap - Will’s soap, she knows, because she’s spent more nights at his house after the downfall of the Phantom Scythe than she can count. Her friend’s hair has grown slightly longer, she notices, when they break apart. Combed back neatly, bangs sweeping over her brow in waves of dark sapphire.

“You look terrible,” exclaims Kym. “They’ve been treating you horribly, haven’t they? **I even bugged Will into making you blueberry scones** because the food they give in your private cell must be terrible.”

“She didn’t have to bug me,” he corrects, ruffling Kym’s hair as he walks up to her, squeezing her shoulder in a gesture of affection. Lauren’s grin grows wider; she already knows this. “Surely you know that already, but I did it myself. She helped. Or tried to.”

“I’m excellent in the kitchen,” Kym claims.

“You are trying,” Will admits grudgingly. “Although you’re better than Lauren, I’ll give you that much.”

“Thanks for the credit, _Williame,”_ she says, nudging him. But Lauren smiles a second too late, and Kym’s brows furrow.

“You’re holding up okay?”

Lauren hangs her head. In some retrospect, her anger and guilt had died down when Dylan fell at her hands. It had been a bigger betrayal than Tristan stabbing her in the back by being on _their side._ Betrayal has a way of working under your bones and blood, and by the time you’ve used all your fear and anger up to drive it deeper into your chest, the more it poisons you day by day.

After a life of seeking nothing but revenge, and then being betrayed by nearly all the people she’d held dear, she has no more room for any more of it.

She doesn’t fear her fate, but the emptiness in her heart still aches. Partially because she’s lost so much in her battle for a better future. Partially because she knows the future is not the one she has always envisioned.

But she will not be afraid.

She’s had a lifetime of fear, and that time is over now.

The pressure on her chest doesn’t recede, however. And Kym and Will both know this, because they give each other looks that only two people who know each other in and out give each other. She knows that look. 

“You still aren’t allowed to visit him,” she says softly, “but I could. For you.” 

Lauren recoils. “Kym, you’ve already done so much. After both of you going through the trial as Soleil? I know the way you see Kieran. I’m not making you visit him.”

“We made reparations,” she says slowly. Wariness still lingers in her eyes. “Look, I may not trust him completely, but I’m willing to talk to him for you. Don’t look at me like that, Laur,” she hisses. “I’m _fine._ You’re the one who isn’t.”

And there it is, put into words.

“I suppose I’m not, still,” she murmurs. “Thank you, Kym.”

___

  
  


“You have a visitor, White,” the guard says, and Kieran knows better than to ask who. “Five minutes.”

He doesn’t expect it to be her, though, and when she walks in, a slender figure clad in black and white light, the barest of rays streaming in from the windows, the doors swing open with a loud whirring of metallic gates. He resists the urge to tell Kym everything - they are not close by any means - but the fact that they contain him in here like some dangerous weapon is making him lose his mind. Once, he was feared. Now, he fears. 

It runs him ragged. 

“I know you like cheesecake,” she says, leaning against the bars, “but Lauren left enough scones for you.” Kym gestures to the basket in her hands.

“How is she?” is what leaves his mouth first, and something like sympathy enters her eyes.

“Getting by,” is what she says. Kym takes the cue to sit down across from him. He remembers, like she does, when they had first understood the truth the other was hiding. Two people keeping their true selves hidden, more wounded than they would ever let on. The sun and the moon, revolving around each other. And maybe that’s why she hated him so _after -_ it was only after they had found her sister’s murderer that she had taken him into their ranks. She had been on the verge of killing him, and Kieran had merely stood by and watched, having done nothing but aid her in her quest despite her barbed remarks and constant vigilance around him. In the end, Kym had chosen mercy instead of vengeance. And accepted _him_. Accepted - forgiveness in the far future, perhaps. He’d taken it. 

She and Lauren are more alike than they know. 

“They’re going to do my testimony in a week,” he says, looking down. “I appreciate the visit, though.”

“This isn’t just because of the _testimony,”_ she says, scoffing. “You know she’s worried about you. It drives all of us insane.”

“She’s the one I put in danger, she shouldn’t be concerned about me at this moment in time,” Kieran says bitterly. “Are you honestly suggesting Lauren’s upset _because_ of me?”

“Partially,” she quips. “She isn’t worried about her fate. And neither are you.” Kym refuses to let him look away from her. “The difference between you two is that she’s accepted whatever happens. You - you look like you’re half dead already.”

He cocks a brow. “Kym, you do realize what I’ve done, correct?”

“I wasn’t aware of your escapades before, _please,_ enlighten me,” she snorts. But her eyes soften. “Look. You’ll always have to live with what you did. They all hate you for it. I—” She breaks off. “I did too, once. So did Will. So did _Lauren,_ when she first made her deal with you. And that can’t be erased. But you’re more than the Purple Hyacinth.” Kym’s voice is genuine. “I’ve learned that, too.”

“I deserve to pay.”

“And you will. I just don’t want to see you accept the fate you think you deserve.”

“You don’t _understand,”_ he hisses. “I deserve this. I deserve more than this.”

Her mouth tightens in a thin line.

“Once, she would’ve said the same thing.”

“I’m not her,” he says flatly. “I’m not Lauren, who has done more good than I ever will.”

“And if they let you go?” she demands. “What happens then? If the impossible happens, Kieran, what will happen? What will you do? Who will you become?”

“I don’t know.” It’s a soft three words, and yet they echo in the bones of this cell. “I don’t know.”

____

  
  


The moon is full tonight, and she supposes that’s what leads her up to Tristan’s old study. She hasn’t visited it in a month - the ghosts of her uncle still haunt her mind. Broken trust still lays the pieces bare at her heart. She can still recall their breakfasts together, the way they had laughed, the way he had held her back in the name of _protection._ The way he had hijacked her mission in the name of _protection._

The problem isn’t that she trusted him and he turned out to be the biggest liar. The problem is that he had loved her all along - so much, in fact, that he was willing to work with the Phantom Scythe in order to keep her from their clutches. 

She truly had been the blindest of all. 

“Lady Sinclair?” says a voice as sweet as honey, and she turns around to see Lucy standing there, her blonde hair in a bun. She’s still in a maid uniform - she’s the only one who’s stayed. A small smile crosses over her face after Lauren fails to speak for a moment. “You _are_ the lady of the house, now. You realize that, don’t you?”

“No, I’m aware of that. After all, there’s nowhere else I _can_ go since they released me,” she says, gesturing to the black cuff on her wrist. The tracker monitor they put on won’t come out unless a select team of security individuals releases her. It’s the least they can do to quell the fragile nerves of the upper class. It’s particularly jarring for them, after all - a well-put together girl, turning out to be anything _but,_ turning their backs on them. At least, that’s what they think. “Could - could you unlock the windows? Uncle never used the balconies.”

“I could!” she affirms, and with a twist of lock and key, the wide windows swing open. Ardhalis’s sky is a twilight blue tonight, dotted with freckles of stars that persist despite the light pollution from the city. Lauren walks onto the balcony, her nightgown swaying in the wind.

“Quite a lovely night, don’t you think?” Lucy walks beside her, gesturing.

“It is,” Lauren says quietly. 

“You know,” she says, looking to the side, almost fondly, “your uncle used to come out here when he was younger. He stopped after your parents’ deaths, I think. You two have the same habit.”

“He did?” Lauren asks quizzically, auburn hair rustling in the wind. “Why did he stop?”

“Something about looking up all the time being foolish,” she says. “Not long after, he became Chief.”

“I see.”

“You do,” responds Lucy, with nothing but warmth in her eyes. “He wanted to make the world a better place. That’s another thing you two have in common.”

“And he paid the price for it,” she says, laying her forearms on the balcony. “And now, so am I.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s quite accurate,” her maid trills, and Lauren looks behind her. “You wanted so much good for others that you were willing to cross lines to get there.”

“Lucy, you can’t be serious!” she objects. “I lost sight of my goals too early on in Lune to even want true justice. I wanted to protect others from the Phantom Scythe, but I nearly put the entire city at risk because of how badly I wanted revenge for my parents, only to have my uncle turn out to be in _their ranks._ I am no better than him.”

“And that’s the thing, see - I knew him. I never knew you as well as I did him,” she says. “And I know that despite the fact that you two were very, very much alike, you were also anything but. You cared. You cared _so much_ about doing the right thing that even after you did the wrong thing, you wouldn’t stop at anything to make things right. I heard how you chased after the Phantom Scythe’s tail like a ruthless bloodhound, along with that assassin. I’m not completely oblivious, Lady Sinclair.”

It turns out that silent, sweet Lucy has a way of shutting up even the most outspoken of women.

“Well?” She clasps her hands together. “You know I’m not lying.”

“You’re not,” she says, turning her face to the sky. A span of white below catches her eye, and Lauren lowers her head to see, in astonishment, a flowerbox attached to the railings of the balcony, withered daisies still swaying in the wind.

“He--” She’s choking on the words now. “He grew _daisies.”_

Lucy’s hands are on her shoulders. “Time and faith will heal your wounds.”

“He grew daisies,” Lauren sobs, and her tears fade into the press of the maid’s shirt as the two of them cling to each other, veiled by the night sky.

____

The garden between her and the Rosenthal house is still intact. It has been tended by the same gardener for ten years, who makes sure that every bush and plant and tree is trimmed to perfection. The fountain in the middle still runs with clear water, the marble polished to a high shine. The bees still hover above lavender bushes in a neat line, lush pink petals of roses and pansies and carnations poking around from winding mazes of leaves. The entire affair is like a crossroads, closed on all sides by large trees that act as a wall on all fronts. 

A secret garden. 

There had been another boy alongside her and Dylan, and the more she thinks about him, too, the more she wonders if he’s doing well. But the frésias in her arms remind her of him again - in the past and present that they share.

_Ren?_ he had asked in a plantitive voice, after she had kicked off the Leader’s mask, shortly after Redcliff’s ball had been invaded by Scythe members.

_Dylan,_ she had whispered, the hem of her silk dress stained with spilled champagne.

They blow like perfect curved ovals in the air, tainted a sweetheart pink. She will not leave them on his grave, for there is no grave for anyone to see. His tale is one of tragedy - tragedy in order for new life to spring free from. One to lose in order for others to live.

He had asked her as much when she’d raised her gun, Kieran’s katana in her other hand, her partner in crime weakened, on the ground, kneeling.

Those two had known each other too, after all. 

And now there is a new life - just not one she is accustomed to.

“Trust and purity,” she says, looking up at the trees above her. “Right, Dylan?”

The wind answers.

She puts the flowers, their stems delicately tied together with twine, on the stone bench where they used to sit, trying not to look back as she leaves the garden of secrets forever.

___

||

  
  


**Hon. Lavillant:** Your time has been granted, Attorney Laurentia. Whether or not you wish to offer it to the defendant is up to you. 

[aside remarks to K. White. There is no crowd*.]

* _private trials see no need for victim witnesses, and in Defendant White’s case, witnesses would only make the situation worse._

**Attorney Laurentia:** Should you choose the ten-minute testimony time, it will be granted now. You’ll have to give testimony later on, anyways.

**K. White:** Let’s just get this over with.

**Attorney Laurentia:** Defendant White has chosen to speak, Your Honor.

**Hon. Lavillant:** Very well. Defendant White, the clock starts now.

[brief moment of silence, sounds of chairs being moved]

**K. White:** ...To begin, I’m not a fool. I’m aware of what you all think of me. And they’re not assumptions. I have caused immeasurable pain to the citizens of this city. That I will never be able to undo. And I’m sure my attorney has spoken in my favor - a _victim of ten years of emotional and psychological, much less physical abuse -_ is what her defense reads, in short. My hesitation to kill Lauren Sinclair is in her defense as well. For once in my life, I know why I hesitated. And that is all true. And I thank you for taking that in consideration. But the people are angry. And you must - I beg of you - to take their anguish into a higher consideration. I still did what I did.

**Hon. Lavillant:** Please add on thirty seconds to the clock. [to K. White] It sounds like, sir, that instead of confessing to your actions, you are demanding for punishment before judgement.

**K. White:** [tiredly] You are a man of the law. And the law must answer what I have done.

**Hon. Lavillant:** Meaning—

**K. White:** Whatever is decreed, I will accept it fully. 

____

“You need to calm down.”

“I am _perfectly calm,”_ seethes Lauren, pacing back and forth in the Sinclair Manor dining room. Kym sips her tea calmly, Will next to her. They seem to be giving her matching stares. 

“You are very clearly not,” Will says, an astonishing amount of judgement coloring his voice. “Sit down, Lauren. We made coffee too.”

“I don’t need coffee, I need answers,” she says, slamming her hands on the table. Neither of them react, just give each other another stare that says _our-friend-is-going-crazy._ “We’re expected to give the final testimony as Lune later this week. How can I be calm?”

“You most likely won’t give very differing recollections even if you are apart,” he says soothingly. “Sinclair. I’m not asking again: _sit.”_

And just like that, he is a lieutenant again, and she is an officer under his command, plopping herself onto a chair.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do to me,” she says slowly, “but all I know is that they’re going to reduce my sentence somehow in comparison to his. My dislike for nepotism could not be more.”

“Why would you want something worse?” Kym bursts out. “We’ve been over this.”

“I don’t want something worse, I want _justice,”_ she says tiredly. “Even if it is the worst.”

Kym falls silent, suddenly cold.

“I love you both more than you know,” she whispers. “But I meant what I said at my trial. I want peace.”

“And if you get peace through your life being spared?”

She inhales.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “All I know is that I’m tired of running.”

____

“Lauren!” someone calls in the courtroom hallway, and when she turns around, that someone turns out to be March, hair ruffled beneath his cap and dressed in a neat burgundy and brown suit. “There you are. I’ve been meaning to find you. You shouldn’t be out here.”

“What do you mean I shouldn’t be out here?” she demands. She knows what she looks like too: bedraggled, black coat windswept, hair in a messy bun. But panic had overtaken all her senses. “My hearing is today.”

“About that,” the detective says slowly, and winces as she fixes him with a fierce stare. She and him have made... _barely-there_ reparations, yes, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t awkward. “Your attorney should’ve called you late last night. You’re not being sentenced.”

“Then who _is?”_ she asks, and her eyes widen.

“He isn’t being given the death penalty,” he says in a rush, before she can kick the door open in a rage. “Don’t worry about that. And you won’t find him here, either.”

“March,” she says as politely as she can. “Please explain to me what’s going on here right now.”

He inhales deeply.

“Lauren, he’s gone.”

She stares.

“What do you mean, he’s _gone?!”_

____

“Saint Icarie is an island on the precipice of the Arkanos Sea,” Kym recites from a world atlas textbook. “The island has approximately a hundred inhabitants, and largely runs an economy off of natural trade through salt and palm leaf trade. The island is largely secluded and is hard to reach due to ocean gyres, which means that outside of what is considered an ocean paradise state, fierce storms block intruders from infringing on the island. In X18, Emperor Jacques Montenegro was banished here, and lived the remaining thirty years of his life in exile.” She shuts the book closed. 

Lauren has not moved from her chair. 

“I,” Kym says, coughing into her fist. “understand that’s where he got the idea from.”

She still doesn’t move. Footsteps charge up Hawkes Manor’s staircase, and Will nearly breaks open the door to the parlor room, panting slightly. 

“You should part your hair to the left,” remarks Kym, smirking slightly. “Makes you look nice.”

“You, giving out compliments? Did you hurt your head?” When he sees Lauren, his eyes grow somber and his blush recedes. “Do you - did you find out where he went?”

“We did,” Lauren says quietly. “When and why, we don’t know.”

“I know why,” Will says, and she nearly jumps up from the loveseat, one hand gripping onto the handles so tightly she fears she might rip into fabric and tear out cotton. “And when. Just this morning - he had scheduled a private hearing with Laurentia. At his suggestion, the court agreed to have him banished out of Ardhalis, because after all the evidence had been revised, they didn’t see him fit for execution. And he wasn’t happy with it. He knew how the city would react.”

“So,” she whispers, “he suggested _Saint Icarie,_ an island _so far away_ that it takes _ages_ to get there in the first place.”

“Yes,” Will says, and he probably knows by now from the look in her eye that she is full of rage. 

She doesn’t punch something, though.

Instead, she laughs. And Kym and Will look at her like she’s gone nuts, when she hasn’t. She is so, so sad. Because she remembers the myth: of _Icarus,_ her mother had told her as a little girl, in her native language, _and how he flew too close to the sun. Some say he was too arrogant. Some say he wanted to fly farther and higher than any bird. But I say it was for the love of freedom - the desire to escape._

So Lauren’s laughter eventually tapers off into tears, as she descends into a black nothingness, feathers falling off the golden plumage of two twin suns embracing the moon as she tumbles down, down down into the sea. 

____

  
  


It turns out she is wanted for something, however.

Hermann, who actually has turned out to be an ally of sorts, has taken March’s side in the appeal for Lauren’s case. She will not walk as a free woman. Instead, she will serve Ardhalis one last time.

“This isn’t exactly how I wanted to get my detective status back.”

“There are a few regulations,” Hermann explains to both of them in his office, pointedly avoiding eye contact with the woman he tried to send to jail. She does not wear the uniform yet, instead, is still clad in her clothes from last night. “You will be a detective, yes, but report to the king directly. As Rhysmel...” He coughs. “...has resigned due to obvious reasons.”

“For being Kieran’s father and starting the Scythe,” spits out Lauren, and the older man’s mouth twitches downwards. She’s testy today, and it doesn’t require an investigator to know why - lack of sleep is starting to get to her. “What, then? I am bound to civil duty?”

“For now,” March corrects. “The High Court knows that you know the Phantom Scythe, though not as well as he would. There are still members out there - running amok, seeing refuge overseas, as dangerous threats, and possible leaders of future organizations.” He spreads out a map in front of them; not just any map, a _world_ one. “Your work is far bigger than any country can do. You’re not just a detective - you’re now the private investigator of the surviving Aevasthers.”

Silence stretches between her and the two men.

“Lauren,” March says. “I know it’s a lot.”

“No.” She sighs. “No, I understand,” she says through gritted teeth, anger boiling up in her. “The royals and the court and _you,”_ she says, poison lacing her words, “want me to be a _hunter—”_

“You’re not—”

_“—in service to the king,_ possibly for _years,_ just in order to bring down a former criminal group with connections overseas, while my former partner in crime who knows his own organization hand over foot is in _exile.”_

Now Hermann, for once, is silent, and March merely avoids her gaze.

“I wanted peace,” she says, collapsing into her chair. “I did not want to become a lone hunter.”

“We don’t like the idea either.”

“I know you don’t,” she says with as much dignity towards March as she can muster. “However, Captain, I’m well aware you’re more than pleased to see me bound by chains.”

His jaw clenches. “What would you have as a sentencing, then? What would you have become?”

It’s not sarcastic, but rather an honest question, for once. 

“I wanted to do good,” she answers. “Freely.”

____

_I’m right, I swear I’m right, I swear I knew it all along,_

_and I am flawed,_

_but I’m cleaning up so well._

______

The first snow of XX28 is calming.

Someone is playing a song in the main square. On closer inspection, it’s a small orchestra, probably playing for free for the holidays. She tips her cap down, tightening the chestnut wool coat around her body tighter. Her target is almost on schedule.

And like clockwork, after a minute of listening to Chopin’s Ballade No. 3, he rounds the corner, cigarette in tow.

Lauren follows him into an alleyway, and, like clockwork, pulls him out soon after with his hands cuffed to his back.

____

“You’re early, Detective,” Phillip says by way of greeting.

“He was,” Lauren says, shoving the man into a chair. “You have him to thank, really.”

“You have me to thank,” repeats the man, holding up his handcuffed hands in surrender. “I give in. Really. Jackson Winters, former weapons affiliate to the Scythe.”

Lauren raises an eyebrow as Phillip shuts the book he’s reading. His golden hair has given way to a dirty blonde, the crown atop his slicked back locks, his normal military uniform traded for much more simple but formal ivory attire. “He isn’t lying. I’ll take him into custody and interrogate him as to where the Red Foxes are.”

“Their group has shown signs of activity across Beltone and Orseau, even as far as Nikesse,” says the king, inspecting his map hanging over his study. The fireplace crackles high in the center. “There’s also the problem of rogue bandits being recruited into Order Argentum.” He pinches the center of his nose. “They’re like moles. You catch them, and another one of them pops up.”

“That’s the thing with vice, Your Majesty,” Lauren says. “It never fades.”

“Thank you.” He looks worn past his years, and she feels a twinge of sympathy for the man. “You’ve done so much for Ardhalis, Detective Sinclair. You truly have.”

“It’s my duty,” she replies. “As long as no one ever meets a disastrous fate, all will be right with me.”

“And you have done a terrific duty.” He turns then, and she sees conflict in his eyes. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you the news directly, but - the Council has become irritated. They want more justice done. And, ah, my next few words may come as a frustrant to you.”

“Enlighten me,” she says slowly. 

He inhales deeply. And then speaks.

“You alone are not making enough progress in their eyes. They would like you to fetch Kieran White.”

____

“And _then,”_ Lauren says, voice reaching a high alto at this point, “they wanted me to go _fetch him?!”_

“I have Kieran’s sword and a couple of watermelons in the icebox,” says Kym, tossing Will a strawberry. “Let’s slice and dice some idiots.”

_“No one is slicing and dicing anyone,”_ says Will hoarsely, shuddering. “Why didn’t you tell me you had Kieran’s sword?!”

“He gave it to me after we defeated the L - Dylan,” corrected Kym, awkwardly meeting Lauren’s eyes. “For safekeeping.”

“I’m not objecting to dicing. Just let me get a couple of blueberries,” Lauren says, falling onto Kym’s lap, Will’s head resting on her shoulders. Despite the comfort it brings - all three of them on the couch, listening to old radio tunes - old agonies and new ones creep through her mind as shadowy phantoms. _He gave his sword to you, not me. Why? So I wouldn’t agonize over his leave? As if he was ever that important. And he was,_ retorts her inner voice, _he was, he was your partner, your former enemy, your comrade in arms, your other half. And you’re jealous in a way that he could be friends with them that he couldn’t be friends with you, because he wanted to spare you from his darker self, because he knew you were the same as him and couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear to say goodbye, the idiot that he is. And now the council and the king want him back as if he’s a tool. And now you have to go and collect him. See him again. And act like everything's fine and somehow convince him again to go with you._

“I’m going to die,” Lauren groans.

“Do I want to know why?” Will asks. “And please don’t make this about the Council. They’re idiots, we know this. There’s no use agonizing over something you can’t fix.”

“When did you get so wise?” she teases, flicking his forehead.

Kym’s still looking at her. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

“I can’t just _collect him!”_ she exclaims, grabbing a pillow and stuffing her face into it. _“I’m going to kill him on sight.”_

“Wise choice.”

“Kym Ladell, do _not_ make me regret proposing to you,” Will reprimands. But he considers the action a while longer. “Maybe you could just - you know. Shove him into the water or something. Light punishment for not saying goodbye.”

“Throw salt,” Kym says, the equivalent of a light bulb going off over her head, “at his _face.”_

“No, that doesn’t work,” Will says. “Water needs to be involved.”

They ponder this for more than six seconds.

“Throw a fish in his face,” they chorus together, looking like they’ve just come across gold. Lauren’s right eye twitches. 

**“I’ll take that into consideration.”**

“Lovely,” Kym says, yawning. She smiles down at her friend sympathetically. “It’s going to be awkward. I know. I wish we could come with you so we could throw two fish in this face. But - _but!”_ she says, tapping a now-giggling Lauren, “we’re going to be there with you in spirit. He didn’t go because he hated you,” she says softly. “You know that, right?”

“I know he didn’t hate me,” he said softly. Will is staring at her with the oddest expression. “What?”

“This...may not be the best time for it,” he says, “but do you remember his time at the office as an archivist - okay, clearly both of you do,” he says, holding up his hands as both women glare at him. “But anyways, we didn’t know you hated each other back then. You were so good at acting we couldn’t tell - until we did. When we caught you both in the hallway staring each other down like he’d killed your cat or something. And we could sense the tension between you two even as you lied through your teeth. I know Kym picked it up quicker than I did.”

“Where are you going with this?” she asks, timidly. He smiles softly.

“You didn’t see it, but when you left with us, you were laughing. Laughing, and the sun had just come through, and it shone on all three of us. And he just - stood there, like he was captivated by you, rooted to the ground, looking at you for a second in time, covered in light, staring. Like you were the greatest thing ever to come into his life. And then he looked away. Quick as a flash. Like he’d never caught sight of you.”

When Will stops speaking for a second, she is breathless.

“I didn’t know what it was back then. Now I know it was as if he didn’t think himself worthy of wanting you.” 

____

_“All first-class passengers on the Sirene may board!”_ hollers the man, blowing a whistle. Lauren fingers with the fur lining on her coat. She is dressed almost like a normal upper-class woman would - a cloche hat in red velvet and rich brocade, a matching coat with gold buttons down her chest, and white gloves. A suitcase rests in her hands, containing the lightest clothing she can wear in heat - Icarie is in the tropics, something she’s never dealt with, ever, as Ardhalis’s summers are relatively mild. Smoke pours from the gargantuan ship, coated in black. At least a hundred or more passengers are on this thing, the gray sky above matching the turbulent sea. A seagull cries forlornly, somewhere.

“Destination?” 

“Delphos,” she recites, handing her papers to the official, “and then direct transfer to Saint Icarie.”

If he’s weirded out by her choice of destination, he doesn’t say anything, but stamps her passport.

“Purpose?”

“Vacationing,” she says, trying to keep her heart from cracking into two, and if he keeps her here any longer, it will break.

He doesn’t.

“Welcome aboard, Miss Sinclair.”

She lives to see another day.

____

  
  


It turns out the lighter clothing is heaven-sent, because the second she crosses into Arkanos waters and into Delphos, the heat climbs up approximately to thirty degrees. Gone are the cold and occasionally snowy fields of Ardhalis, here, the sun beats down relentlessly, and the waters turn pellucid at her feet. She steps out onto her first stop in leather boots, pants and a blouse that’s opened at the front, only slightly - to do so more would remind her of him.

Scraping her hair into a high ponytail and sucking on ice doesn’t do much good. She’s going to die because of the heat. And the seagulls. The stupid birds are still here, like they are in Ardhalis, but they leave waste everywhere. _Everywhere._ There is white on every single surface on the beach. The city - a cluster of gorgeous pale buildings all similar in shape and size, varied here and there in color, red flowers everywhere - is nothing like her hometown, and absurdly foreign.

When Lauren finds a clothing shop after wandering around for a few minutes, it’s a godsend. The boutique harnesses a cool breeze, and the woman at the front gives Lauren an odd look the second she steps in, suitcase in hand.

“Are you looking for anything specific?” she asks in perfect Ardharlian, and she doesn’t ask how the woman knew she was a foreigner.

“Uh - lighter clothing,” she says, gesturing to her outfit. “Nothing specific. Just something I won’t overheat in.”

“Ah _,”_ says the woman, clapping her hands together, laughing loudly. “You northerners are all the same. Thicker skins than furs, but sweltering like seals in heat.”

“I--”

“Call me Phaedra,” she says, tugging Lauren along. “We’ll find something suitable yet.”

‘Something suitable’ at Phaedra’s hands turns out to be a selection of dresses not unlike the one the woman herself is wearing - all spun out of cotton, white just like the buildings, with different hems and necklines, some accented with florals, others with copper hangings.

Eventually, she manages to catch her scheduled fishing boat to Saint Icarie - which is cramped, but certainly not overcrowded, heralded by a fisherman that gives her a look that clearly says _You want to go_ **_where_ **but begins the engine anyway. Off goes the hat. She feels only bare with nothing but the sand and the salty sea to rub against her skin, but in this flowy dress not unlike her nightgown - except sturdier, curving around her body, and with an off-shoulder neckline rimmed with gold, she won’t die of sunstroke.

She doesn’t feel like a detective.

She doesn’t know what she feels like anymore.

So she concentrates on her rage.

_I’m coming for you._

____

  
  


Saint Icarie is gorgeous, frankly. There’s no other way to put it. It’s surrounded by mountains, lush greenery everywhere, from a distance. The small village is at the front of the bay, where water swells around the slight cliffs. But it’s been three hours, and Lauren is close to snapping after going through what could only be described as a minor tropical monsoon. The dress sticks to her like a second skin, and salt and sun have darkened her once pale skin to a light tan. Her hair spills over her shoulders.

She yanks her luggage off the boat with a vengeance. 

“There’s barely anyone attending to the hotel in front,” shouts the fisherman from his boat. “You’re going to have to explore the village on your own.”

**“I’ll be fine,”** she reassures him, and when the boat is far enough from the bay, she collapses on the docks, head in her hands.

Lauren groans, and that groan quickly morphs into a minor yell. A bird squawks, and she knows it isn’t a seagull. Maybe an albatross. How far to the ends of the earth is she? Alone, on a barely inhabited island, where _he is,_ which means sooner or later she is going to _see him._

The man who came into her life in a storm of lightning and thunder and left her without so much as a spark. How dare he leave - how dare he wallow in his self-pity and act _like that._ And the audacity to leave her alone. To fend for Ardhalis for herself, to act as the king’s personal investigator, to round up former Scythe members and send them crawling back home. Alone, alone, alone.

That’s what bothers her the most, isn’t?

Underneath chains, she is alone.

“I came here to make a change,” she mutters under her breath. “It doesn’t matter if I have to haul him over my shoulder kicking and screaming back to the Council, I’m going to protect the people…”

It’s late evening, and so Lauren isn’t sure how long she sits there, watching the sun set. Her feet kick at the edge of the water, and she breathes in sea air. At least that much is familiar. She hasn’t relaxed this much in ages. Perhaps, in the far future, she should take vacation time, and just maybe—

“Lauren?”

Her heart squeezes so hard she thinks she might die. It’s been a year - a year since she’s heard that voice, so arrogant and full of emotion underneath, and then after, tapered and hollow and self-destructive.

He sounds nothing like that now. Kieran White speaks as if he’s hallucinating, blue eyes blown out, staring at her like she’s just appeared out of thin air. He’s dressed in a thin cloth shirt - yes, open at the front, and in tight black pants. The biggest difference of all is that his hair is out of its bun, half up half down, in thick black waves across his shoulders. He stands feet away from her on the dock, the two of them on opposite sides of the setting sun.

He’s here. He’s actually here.

An entire year’s worth of emotion piles on top of her chest, and before she knows it, she’s jamming her hand into the ocean. Red seabream swim beneath the dock. 

“Lauren,” he says, and his voice is ragged and laced with dread and what could possibly be called longing. “Why are you—”

_“Petit merde!”_ she howls, striking him across the cheek with the wiggling seabream in her hand.

He falls into the ocean, arms outstretched, and Lauren thinks it’s the most satisfying noise she’s ever heard.

____

  
  


**“I am sorry,”** he says grimly, blanket wrapped around his shoulders, **“for leaving.”**

She slaps him in the face with her rubber spatula. He barely winces. Lauren goes back to tending the stove, where their dinner - the fish that she’d grabbed with her bare hands - currently fries, alongside a ready pot of rice. 

“Don’t burn the meat.”

“You will not so much as speak a word to me until I am done cooking,” she growls, eyes dilated like a tiger’s in hunt, “or I will throw you to the sharks in the sea.”

“There are no sharks in these waters, officer.”

She has half a mind to screech and vault the pot of rice out the window, but restrains herself. Instead, she sobers up, stirring the fish. “I’ve been promoted. By the king himself.”

Before his eyes dim enough and he congratulates her, she speaks again. “After you left, the Council had trouble dealing with remnants of the Scythe popping up around the globe. It would throw a wrench in international politics, so they hired me - as a former Lune member - to hunt them down. Organizations, individuals. I’ve been conscripted into service as a detective.”

The fish is done. Kieran’s cottage is on the outskirts of a cliff overlooking the sea, and the sound of the waves is palpable. It’s cozy in here, all baby blue and cream white, flowers in the front. He shuffles out of the blanket, sitting across from her.

“You were always their best detective. It doesn’t surprise me,” he says frankly, chewing thoughtfully. “And you didn’t burn the fish.”

“Will’s been teaching me.”

“I thank him in spirit, then.”

“You can thank him in person,” she retorts, nearly slamming her glass of water down, “when you come back to Ardhalis.”

_“Lauren.”_

“They need you,” is what comes out of her mouth in a rush. “The Council wants me to work with you, as long as it takes, to quell former Phantom Scythe activity. I came here for you,” she finishes. “I came here for you.”

Kieran sets his fork down. The silence between them is like ice as he leans forward, blue eyes lined with fire.

“Lauren,” he says coldly, and it _hurts._ “Have you gone _mad.”_

“I am not leaving without you.”

“Let me put it in words, then, _detective,”_ he says, and his voice is colder than she’s ever heard it, but anything but full of rage. A memory: a cave, a storm, a confrontation. “I am not going back with you. Whatever information on the Phantom Scythe you want, you can have it. Targets, associates, potential weaknesses - what’s mine is yours. But I will never come back with you.”

“I,” she repeats again, resisting the urge to shout, “am _not_ leaving without you.”

He chuckles darkly. “No one leaves Saint Icarie. Are you aware of this island’s history, detective? People come here to disappear.”

“And that’s what you want?!” she exclaims, standing up, chair scraping back loudly. “That’s what you’ve wanted so badly all this time? To disappear?!”

“I am not you,” he seethes, standing up as well. “What part of _I am the Purple Hyacinth_ do you not understand, Lauren? Families, men, women, _children_ hurt at my hands.”

_“You didn’t want any of it!”_ she yells. _“You didn’t want any of it, and they know that!”_ She heaves with the force of her breath; this rage is a rage she’s stored for years. “Yes, we will always be tainted in their eyes. We both have our dirty pasts. I am not innocent.”

“I know you’re not.”

“Then stop _acting this way!_ Stop acting like an idiot and thinking disappearing and wallowing in self-pity and closing yourself off from the world is going to fix anything when it needs you and—”

His hand catches her arm mid-air, and she shivers wildly at the touch. Kieran steps back, jaw working as if he’s been stuck by merely touching her. The fire hasn’t died down yet, and so the silence between them is filled with the sounds of wood crumbling down into ash.

“I am not coming back with you,” he says, and when he leaves the room, she knows it’s final. 

____

Too bad her parents raised someone too stubborn for their own good.

____

“What’s this.”

“The list of Phantom Scythe members out in the wild,” she says. “Too many to tackle for one person.”

“Why,” he says, and she wonders if he can read minds, “are you so stupidly _stubborn.”_

“Big words coming from someone who went into hiding and ran away from society,” she throws back, hard as a dagger in his side. It works, and he hangs his head. She swallows hard; she’d found him sitting on the cliff this morning, and he’s still refusing to look at her for more than two seconds. Dawn light rises, and she’s changed her attire for loose pants and a silk top that is sleeveless, with her hair in a braided chignon. 

“Our partnership is in the past.”

“Thank you for reminding me of sweet memories,” she says bitterly. “I’d almost forgotten. You aren’t getting rid of me no matter how many brutal insults you throw my way.”

**“I am not—”**

She snarls, all teeth. Kieran sighs.

“Right. I have forgotten about my constant polygraph in human form by my side.”

Lauren sighs into her hand, then faces him head-on. “If not for...me, then justice. You can’t just sit here and let all these people go.”

Kieran’s eyes flit down to the list in her hand. It spills down to the ground.

“Don’t worry,” she amends. “I hate the Council too.”

He lets out a bark of laughter, mirthlessly.

____

He leaves with her two days later, bag in hand and without a sword at his side.

When they show up in Ardhalis, clad in matching blues and blacks, it’s Kym who greets them first at Will’s door, a ring on her finger. 

Surprisingly, she throws her arms around Kieran first, while Will sweps Lauren into his arms. And then it’s their turn to squeeze both of them to death.

“You took my advice, didn’t you?” she teases.

“I did, actually,” Lauren says, and she erupts into giggles, and soon enough, the two are on the ground, covered in snowfall, laughing like hyenas, while both men wonder if their companions have gone insane.

____

  
  


She feels saddened that she missed their formal engagement announcement, but there’s work to be done.

The Council spares no time in sending them towards their first target, a few miles east. So they pack their bags like they’ve done this a thousand times before, wait together at Allendale Train Station like they’ve done this a million times before, and cross international lines as if they have done this for lifetimes.

The emptiness in her chest is less, but it still hurts at the thought of Kieran leaving her once this is all over. She can’t prevent him from going back into exile on Saint Icarie, as a defender of the law. She cannot cross moral lines like it is nothing anymore - at least, not without the regard of others.

“No objections,” she says, as he drives them down the streets of Beaubonne.

“Why would I object to our base?” he asks sardonically, raising an eyebrow. Kieran White is still not the Kieran White she has always known; he’s frozen in a time she cannot reach, barely thawing. Perhaps not thawing at all. “It’s not exactly a cave, detective—”

Temporary _homebase_ for operations turns out to be a two-story villa not unlike that of a chateau on the outskirts of the city of Allure, made out of pink-stained sandstone and laced with gold trim, gravel entrance around a fountain and large gardens.

“Don’t say anything,” she says, as several men come up to take their bags. “The position pays.”

“Well done, Sinclair,” he drawls, as she motions for him to walk up the enormous marble staircase. The foyer is equally opulent, if not slightly dusty from years of abandonment. Lauren sets down her bags, stretching for a while. 

“You can choose whatever room you’d like,” she says softly, not looking his way. “Don’t worry about room size.”

She waits for him to respond. He doesn’t, and sure enough, silently takes his own luggage and makes his way down the hallway to the west.

Lauren exhales, and calms the last of her sadness as she makes her way for the second floor.

____

_He remembers._

_In bits and pieces, but just enough to hover the sword at the woman’s throat instead of striking flesh._

_He holds her, just like that, suspended in mid-air, holding her. Her holding him, mask off, slightly bruised at her temples, bun askew. Golden eyes piercing his, in that brief moment, like a lighting shock to the system._

_It has been years._

_The scars on his back, for once, do not sing of the past._

_The wounds, before everything was taken away, were quelled by a stroke of the pen. Flowers. Children._

_Now she silences the wounds, too._

_He remembers._

_He remembers._

____

  
  


“You haven’t drawn since we’ve gotten here,” she remarks. 

Kieran looks to the side. She’s there, because of course she is, her hat tipped downwards, the pistol in her belt for last resort only. The Red Fox base is here - they know it is, from more recent information and hiding spots he has coordinated based off of former Scythe activity. “We’ve been busy, detective, if you haven’t noticed.”

“You were in exile for an entire year,” she says, straining as she picks the lock on the window. Her mouth strains in concentration. “You had time. And yet, the entire time I was at your cottage, I never saw so much as a sketchbook or a charcoal pen.”

“You looked around while you were supposed to be sleeping? Scandalous, Lauren.”

“Don’t ‘scandalous’ me, assassin,” she retorts as second nature, and it’s only after he takes over the lock, getting them in within a matter of seconds, along with her hurried thanks, that they realize their names and roles no longer fit.

What then, in this aftermath?

He moves forward to fill the silence. “Callister should be downstairs. If we hold him hostage briefly, it should be enough to lure the others out.”

“Are you sure? Winters gave no clues about the others.”

“Oh, trust me, I know,” he says sardonically. “You draw out one vermin, see - the rest come rushing in.”

“Kieran—”

“Do you trust me?” he asks, and a thousand things arise unspoken: _do you trust me after I left you for a year, for what felt like eternity, after I betrayed you over and over again, I keep coming back to you anyways, why do I keep coming back to you?_

“Go,” she breathes, and he unsheathes his daggers.

Later that night, after the police have concluded their local investigation, Kieran sees a sketchbook on the desk of his borrowed room.

_Don’t mention it._

_-L_

And because he, too, is stubborn, he mentions it. He barges into her room, and she watches him then, almost taken aback by the emotion in his eyes. It’s been so cold for so long. She can’t bear it all at once.

“Why?” he demands.

She snaps. “Do we have to keep playing this game?” she says, running her hands through her hair in exhaustion.

“Lauren—”

“I want you here with me,” she says, and he shuts up. “Even after leaving, even after being an enormous idiot with an ego the size of the sun, I _want you here with me.”_

He looks down at the book and the pens in his hands, as if he’s a child left unattended with materials to build an entire universe with.

“I don’t know why you stay,” he says, after so much silence she feels as if he’s left again, “but I want you to know that I’m glad you did. I…” He closes his mouth, then opens it again. “I missed you.”

She blinks. Her hair spills over her shoulders in waves of scarlet. “I don’t know what we are anymore,” is what comes off her tongue next, “but I want to try. Can we just do that, for now? No more games.”

Kieran nods. And a ghost of his old grin comes back.

“I think we’ve had enough of those,” he says, and they both manage a small smile.

____

_I am seeing in me now the things you saw in yourself._

____

  
  


_He remembers._

_That boy had offered a flower first. He had refused, because surely they would find him here, and punish him, like they had in the past. Emotion was his weakness, they had proclaimed. Emotion must no longer be a weakness. To be their best, he could no longer feel._

_But the boy had offered a flower, and he had taken it._

_The boy was not alone._

_“You draw well,” a girl had laughed, with the most stunning eyes he’d ever seen._

_He would not remember long after, because they would make him not remember._

_He would not come back to the garden._

_But now he is starting to remember._

_He is starting to remember._

____

  
  


She hopes he hasn’t heard her scream.

Lauren tosses aside the sheets, and stands on shaky legs. She heads for the balcony, rote memory taking over, and soon enough, she’s taking in lungfuls of cold nights air, bringing clarity to her mind. Dread creeps on her as she hears footsteps up to the second floor, and settles down on her permanently as she wipes tears from her eyes. His hair is loose - no bindings, no ties - the way it had been in their final battle against Dylan.

“You screamed,” he says, and she turns away.

“Sorry about the noise,” she says, leaning on the railing. “Did I bother you?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he walks towards her. “What did you have a nightmare about?”

Lauren hesitates, then speaks. “My parents. The accident. Allendale. I thought I had dealt with their ghosts,” she says, laughing shakily. “I haven’t, I suppose.”

“Some things,” he says after a while, the sounds of crickets chirping loudly in the night as a backdrop of sound, “never truly leave you. But...you learn to accept them. And let them go.”

Lauren buries her face in her arms. “Sorry. You can go back to bed now.”

Something in his eyes softens, and Lauren shivers slightly as she stands to meet him, her body heat rising rapidly as he strokes a lock of auburn. It may just be her mind talking, but he looks apologetic, more emotional than she’s seen him in weeks.

“I haven’t been very good to you,” he says, “have I?”

“You left,” she replies curtly. “And you didn’t even tell me - them - why.”

Kieran shakes his head. “I lied before. I...regret leaving without so much as a notice. I suppose I was caught up in—”

“The wallows of your self pity,” finishes Lauren, and they both laugh. She shivers then, and this time, it is from the cold. What she doesn’t expect, however, is Kieran looping an arm around her shoulders, tugging her forward into his chest. She stifles a surprised yell as her face buries into his nightshirt.

“Don’t catch a cold on my account.”

“So generous,” she says, rolling her eyes, but he still looks down at her with serious eyes.

“Tell me about your parents,” he says coaxingly, gently. “It keeps the ghosts away.”

Lauren breathes in his scent of sandalwood and musk, and slowly, her hands drift up to his back, clutching at him gently at first, reluctantly, as if he’ll disappear into thin air, but he doesn’t, after a while, and that’s when she holds him closer to herself, waiting for her throat to clear before she can speak properly.

“Mom gave me her golden eyes,” she starts, voice slightly muffled, but clear as day. “Dad was the one who was always adamant on protecting people - it started from a young age, I think, or at least that’s what he told me…”

____

The first time he calls her darling, it’s in the middle of a shootout, and just a week after Kym and Will’s marriage. 

_“Duck!”_ he yells at her, and she does, bullets whizzing through the air.

“They’re going to blow up their base!” she screams from the other side of the alleyway, clutching her pistol to her chest. “We need to disable the explosives before they’re rigged!”

“If you aim for the windows on the left—” he says, their conversation cut off by several yells “of the factory, that’s where they’re storing hydrogen gas. It’ll serve as a distraction.”

“Are you _insane?!”_ she demands, and he winks at her as his dagger lands in the leg of one of the men charging at them.

“Just a bit, darling,” he amends, and doesn’t give her time to process her emotions before he grabs her hand, the two of them charging into the factory, smoke billowing all around them. 

Not surprisingly, Order Argentum, true to its name, specializes in metals. So it is not surprising at all to the two of them, after a brief struggle involving many knives and her signature roundhouse kick to the head, that they find millions embezzled in Beltone funds in the form of various gold and silver bars underneath the tarps residing on the basement floor.

“Chief Linne?” she asks into the crackling radio in her hand. “Evening - Detective Sinclair here. We have your suspects in custody.”

“Amateurs,” judges Kieran, kicking one of the bound men with his foot. She cocks an eyebrow at him.

“You know I’m right. I could’ve done better.”

“Yes, yes, _thank you_ for reminding me that every criminal and organization we capture is nothing compared to you.”

What a pain.

A pain she’s glad to have back for now, at least.

____

  
  


After they get back to Ardhalis to report to the king, Will invites her and Kieran over for a celebratory dinner.

The Hawkes Manor has changed in some retrospects. He and Kym have painted the manor a cheery yellow and blue, light pastel colors that are a small signal of rebellion in the normally whitewashed upper-class districts, whose manors are all in shades of dull brown and gray. Sinclair Mansion is no different - she’s visited only occasionally, with Lucy always receptive to her lady’s returns, but perhaps she should consider a paint job too.

The most significant difference is that the manor is full of life now, though. Instead of the ghosts of Josephine Hawkes still lingering in the shadows and depths of the house, the entire domicile smells of sugar and cinnamon and is filled with the sounds of laughter and music and loud noise. Will had come running down from his practice room; Kym from the library, practically jumping the two of them again.

This time, matching silver bands cross their hands. Kym’s is dotted with diamonds. As she lets go of Lauren, and she can finally catch her breath, she quells the envy in her chest - the envy that spells out _it’s not fair that they have all the time in the world, and I don’t with Kieran - a friend? A partner?_

But she swallows it down.

“I smell...paprika?”

“Oh, that’s the main course!” she hollers, and Will emerges from the stove flour-stained, hair rumpled, an apron around his waist that is dotted with miniature watermelon. 

“Go on, go on, _sit,”_ she commands, nearly shoving them into the kitchen. “I’ll get your coats. And Kieran - remind me to get your sword.”

“I don’t need it,” he says, startling, meeting her eyes. “Really - you needn’t do that—”

“Look, we don’t have fish this time around, but I’m pretty sure a wooden spoon is an accurate substitute.” She pokes his cheek. “You are taking your sword, and that is final.”

Kieran doesn’t object.

Later on, Kym nearly grabs Lauren in a headlock when she regrets missing their wedding, but the two of them have enough photos to fill up hundreds of albums. Kym and Will had said their vows in matching suits, in matching hues of white, and - because of course they would - with sun pins on their lapels, uniting in a shower of flower petals.

“The suns were Kym’s idea,” Will says later on, in their living room, after all four of them have been stuffed with paprikash and raspberry trifle. “She still won’t admit she cried that day.”

“So did you, moron!” huffs his wife, flicking his forehead.

Lauren laughs, her eye catching sight of Kieran next to her, shifting slightly. She lets out a slight noise of surprise when his head rests on her shoulder. 

“Are you tired?!”

“Not really,” he murmurs. “It’s just good to be back.”

Kym and Will both stretch their necks over to look at him, and his eyes snap open, a small groan escaping his lips.

“I am sorry,” he drones, “for leaving without notice and making your best friend slap me in the face with a fish to make me regain your senses.”

“You deserved it,” Will says, but he settles back into the couch. “Welcome back, White. Even if it is only for another day.”

It turns out Kym and Kieran are better liars than she thought, however, because they nod off nearly ten minutes later. Which leaves Lauren and Will alone, meant to deal with their partners - romantic or not.

“You’ve been looking stressed,” he comments. 

“It’s been a lot of work,” she says, resting her arms behind her head. The crescent moon is visible in the evening sky, not quite clear like it would otherwise be in an inky ocean. “But we’ve been doing good work. I’ve had people thank both of us, too. Some don’t recognize him - and they end up thanking both of us.”

“I know you want to do good,” Will says softly. “But you can’t save everyone, Lauren.”

“I know that,” she objects, turning on her side to look at him. His eyes dart to Kieran and then her.

“You deserve a break,” he insists. “Both of you do.”

She sighs, suddenly feeling drained of energy. “I’m a peacekeeper. I don’t have it any other way.”

“But what do you _want?”_

Lauren ponders this longer than usual. Before: justice, after: peace, now, one or the other impossible to grant in just one swift movement.

“Time to figure out what I want, I suppose,” she answers. “More time.”

____

  
  


The train to the outskirts of Avaroen is a two-day ride, which gives Lauren a lot of time to ponder. It also gives Kieran a lot of time with his thoughts alone, which is why when the two sit across from each other, talking about the most mundane things ever, their old banter slowly shrugging off dust and rising to the occasion, he wonders why he hasn’t opened the sketchbook she’d given him.

“You could draw me,” she offers, and his head snaps up. “You did before.”

He raises an eyebrow. _“That_ room was private, _mon bien-aimee.”_

“And I’m the queen of Ardhalis. You left the door open. You’re still terrible at telling me what you feel.”

“Excuse me? Who slapped me with a fish when they missed me?”

**“I’m gonna kill you,”** she groans into her hands, and he chuckles. But his hands hover over the bare piece of paper, and he knows she senses his hesitation. Quick as a flash, she begins undoing her elaborate braid, and auburn spills over her shoulders, longer than it’s ever been. In the morning light, gold shrouds it in amber, and for only a moment, Kieran captures the moment in his head.

It’s hard not to look away when looking away has been a habit for a year. 

“Go on,” she says, leaning against the windowsill. “Just try.”

“You make for a very tough subject.”

“Just do it,” she sighs, her patience clearly tested, and he looks at the charcoal pen in his hands. It begins to move. It knows this pattern well, even after not drawing it for a while - the slope of her neck, the curve of her jaw, the way she looks at everything and everyone like she’s trying to puzzle them out.

“You’re fidgeting.”

“I’m not.”

“I do need to get a good look at you while you’re there,” he says, voice slightly raspy from misuse. The next time their eyes meet, she looks away suddenly, golden eyes concentrating on the fields passing by the window. 

“Looking now?”

“I’m always looking,” he says, tracing her hair.

He feels her shift again. “You never looked before.”

And before he knows it, a duplicate of Lauren Sinclair - if not a very rough portrait of her - looks back at him, frozen in time. 

“I thought you weren’t going to stay,” he admits quietly, lowering the sketchbook.

She looks at the portrait, mouth slightly parted. For a moment, he goes slightly insane and perceives the wild look in her eyes to be desire - but it quickly fades.

“I’m going to stay.” Lauren doesn’t look away from him. “Are you?”

_I don’t know if I can, the Council won’t let me most likely, the general public still fears me._ The voices in his head all beg for attention, but they all vanish in a matter of seconds, reality striking as true as a lance. 

_I want to._

____

  
  


She wants a change, and has no one else to ask but him.

But her courage is particularly plucky today, and it’s out of sheer luck that when they landed in Brancon, the capital, that their mission had turned out to be an infiltration one. A target, not an organization, easy to confront and arrest. Their assigned criminal works in an art studio, and so Kieran had been the one to take the reins this time - they have been switching for a couple of months, back and forth, equals in every way.

The better half of himself had risen to the occasion hours ago. And she knows Kieran White, essentially, is to embrace and care for a duality, both good and bad, as is with anyone, but for today, he had come into his own. It had started out slow, as he had started work with a canvas and oil paints. She had been watching him from across the street, in a cafe - how ironic, their fates in reverse from where they first met - and soon enough, a gaggle of children had come up to watch him work.

And, most surprisingly of all, he had turned out to be quite the teacher, a rainbow of colors dotting his hands and skin while he explained the still life drawing he was crafting to the kids, with the softest smile on his face that she’d ever seen.

So they’re both at ease today, and that’s why she asks.

Kieran cradles the pair of scissors gently in his hands. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she says, watching her hair sway down her back, at this point, waist-length. “It’s getting hard to wash, and easier to pull in battle. I just want it slightly below chin length.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, just inspects the silver pair in his hands, then nods. “I’ll be back.”

He does come back, two minutes later, with a towel in his hands and a bottle of polish. She’s already sitting in the vanity of the hotel room they share, twining locks of hair around her fingers. “Lie your head back - there,” he says, cradling the back of her hair in his hands. “Don’t move. Do you want layers or not?”

“...Layers?” she says after a while, in a tone that clearly says _How do you even know this?!_

“I’ll add them in,” he says, scoffing. “If you move even an inch - **I will cut you.** ” 

“Do I even want to know how you learned?” she demands, as he begins cutting at her hair. “Why, I really do have the most multi-talented partner of all time.”

“You give out the loveliest compliments, darling,” he murmurs, shifting his stance a little. She can feel a weight dropping from her shoulders as he cuts, and oddly, doesn’t feel nostalgic as she should - her hair hasn’t changed for years.

“Well, _do_ I want to know?”

“Some things are better left as mysteries,” he says. Two fingers touch her forehead, and suddenly, she’s leaning back, staring back into a pair of twin oceans. “Look at me. Don’t move again.”

She shivers, but obeys. Now that she’s facing him, she’s even more fidgety than ever, but doesn’t shift in her chair. Barely any time passes before he lets her look down, letting her massage the crick in her neck.

“Look up.” 

“You - _oh.”_

Her hair falls in soft strands around her face, slightly shorter strands framing her jaw in front. It’s halfway down her neck, as she’d requested, and red litters the floor, which he is now cleaning up. “How is it?”

She swivels around in her chair and grabs his lapel. Kieran stumbles forward, catching himself on the arms of it, startled. 

“Thank you.” Lauren swallows lightly. “It’s perfect.”

He smirks. “So I am really talented, after all?”

“Don’t make me hurl these at your face,” she threatens, and he laughs.

____

_He remembers._

_He remembers._

____

On the eve of the first spring, he tells her that he does.

On the eve of their first separation, he tells her that he remembers.

Surprisingly enough, she doesn’t slap him with a variety of sea-related animals, or cries, or ignores him for weeks on end, which is what he is thankful for in spades, because now that he has her by his side, he cannot bear to see her go.

She understands instead. 

“I understand,” she says quietly when he is finished, and does not say sorry, because both of them have been broken before, and understand that apologies, to some extent, fix nothing. There is only empathy and understanding left. “I understand why you hesitated now.”

“It wasn’t just because I knew you.” Kieran touches her cheek, and she leans into his touch. “It was because I was tired of being chained up for seven years and then more.”

“So roundhouse kicks to the face jog your memory?” she jokes, and he laughs softly. Ardhalis’s trees, normally so bare in the winter, shed white petals everywhere, and as they sit in the Sinclair Manor garden, they pool at their feet just like snow.

“The meeting with the Council is tomorrow,” she says, and they fall silent. Lauren understands what he feels, too, what they both feel: that although they have managed to subdue enough vice in the world to grant it peace, they may still be separated. Parted forever.

She holds him tighter.

“Don’t go,” Lauren mumbles into his shoulder.

He kisses the top of her head. “I will always be with you.”

____

Maybe she is more like her mother than she thought.

“What the actual—” curses the High Councilman, letting out a sudden string of expletives as Lauren marches into his office, holding a list of Phantom Scythe members they’ve managed to catch.

“I’ve fulfilled my civil duty,” she says, standing up ramrod straight. “And so has he. I’m going to say this first and foremost as Ardhalis’s defender: I want to change both our sentences.”

“Well, for that, we'd need another sentencing."

"I know what I want. If you'd be willing to hear me - us - out."

_Peace._

____

_(coda)_

.

.

.

.

The lilies in the garden will come to life eventually, some day, but for now, they are but buds in the soil, tended to by a pair of hard-working gardeners, one with a hat to shield her from the sun, with dirt-stained hands, and the other with his long black hair in a ponytail, wielding a hoe like he does a sword.

The other one has not come back from the fields quite yet, and the girl instead takes off her hat to greet the Beltone dawn - in a country so far and yet so close from her homeland. The farm behind them is more like a cottage with an immensely large area to plant their chosen flora, deer occasionally frequenting the countryside, looking for treats. Fog pools over the area, shrouding the grass in dew.

She steps forward, grabbing her shawl from the bench. When she walks out, she looks akin to that of someone waiting for - well, _someone,_ who has been gone for an eternity, short hair swept back in the wind, dress waving in the air.

But when you have peace, you never wait long, and neither does she.

The sun rises, and it eclipses the second figure coming out of the forest fields, waving a hand in greeting. The walk is slow, but he returns, and they don’t look away from each other as they embrace, both turning their heads to view their handiwork.

“I think it needs more color,” adds Kieran, always the one with the artist’s eye. “Thoughts, detective?”

“You can lecture the kids in the town about color theory, just not me,” Lauren grumbles, as she reaches up to kiss him, soft and sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up with a bad taste in my mouth at approximately 6 AM last morning thinking about nuclear scenarios for Purple Hyacinth’s ending. And so, after a day and a half, I present to you this. This is the result of my disgust for my mind going ‘but what if BAD THINGS.’ This also may just be because I’m what you call a Ye Olde Fandom person; I’ve been on more rodeos than you can count, and consumed so much media where traumatized characters like Kieran - _especially Kieran_ \- alongside Lauren, and to a lesser extent, Kym and Will, are either killed off, shoved aside, gone forever, or used as ‘moral’ shows for ‘the audience.’ 
> 
> I’m going to say it here and now: I don’t believe in any of that. I don’t believe that Soph and Eph will do that to us, because they are a competent and frankly extremely talented artist-writer duo. And yes, a happy ending doesn’t always have to be the main couple ending up together. Yes, a happy ending doesn’t have to have all the cast alive. But that’s in situations where the main couple isn’t set up to work together. That’s in situations where you, as an audience member, are given more characters than are necessary to survive a finale. 
> 
> Purple Hyacinth is neither of those situations. I’m going to stick to my stance, even if I am the only clown in Funky Town to do so - Lauren and Kieran are each other’s worst selves, yes, but as narrative foils and the dual protagonists of PH, they are _literally_ each other’s healing. They cannot and will not heal without seeing each other in the other person, even though there are other factors involved in their character arcs (Kieran interacting with others, Lauren slowly becoming consumed by her vengeance, etc). _They are each other. They work better as a whole._ Same goes for Kym and Will. I don’t think any of them will be killed off, because that would be the worst narrative call of all. They heal each other too. They are better as a whole. All of them are better as a whole. You take one piece out, the whole thing falls apart. 
> 
> Sorry for the literal essay this time around, I know I’m normally not the type of person to ramble. If anything, however, I hope this 13k+ self-indulgent fic was comforting to you. If anything, I hope that if you come back to this one day, that you will find what Lauren and the others found, eventually, at the end of a long hard road - peace, and eventually, acceptance that there can be better things, because hope is all we have.
> 
> Add-ons:
> 
> -Saint Icarie is based on a combination of the actual island of Icarie, and Saint Helena, in the Mediterranean Sea; the latter actually held Napoleon Bonaparte during his exile.  
> -Delphos is a combination of Athens, and the islands of Delphi and Delos.  
> -Don’t follow the transcripts in the beginning as actual court transcripts, guys. I know next to nothing about law.


End file.
